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Roland Winters

Roland Winters

Actor · 1904 – 1989 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Roland Winters (born Roland Winternitz) was an American actor who played many character parts in films and television but today is best remembered for portraying Charlie Chan in six films in the late 1940s. Monogram Pictures eventually selected Winters to replace Sidney Toler in the Charlie Chan film series. Winters was 44 when he made the first of his six Chan films, The Chinese Ring in 1947 and ending with Charlie Chan and the Sky Dragon (also known as Sky Dragon) in 1949. His other Chan films were "Docks of New Orleans", "Shanghai Chest", "The Golden Eye" and "The Feathered Serpent". He also had character roles in three other feature films while he worked on the Chan series. Yunte Huang, in Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, noted differences in the actors' appearances, especially that Winters' "tall nose simply could not be made to look Chinese." Huang also cited the actor's age, writing, "at the age of forty-four, he also looked too young to resemble a seasoned Chinese sage." In contrast to Huang, Ken Hanke wrote in his book, Charlie Chan at the Movies: History, Filmography, and Criticism, "Roland Winters has never received his due ... Winters brought with him a badly needed breath of fresh air to the series." He cited "the richness of the approach and the verve with which the series was being tackled" during the Winters era." Similarly, Howard M. Berlin, in his book, Charlie Chan's Words of Wisdom, commented that "Winters brought a much needed breath of fresh air to the flagging film series with his self-mocking, semi-satirical interpretation of Charlie, which is very close to the Charlie Chan in Biggers' novels." After the series finished, Winters continued to work in film and television until 1982. He was in the movies So Big and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, played Elvis' father in Blue Hawaii and a judge in the Elvis film Follow That Dream. He made appearances as the boss on the early TV series Meet Millie as the boss and the courtroom drama Perry Mason. In one episode of the Bewitched TV series, he played the normally unseen McMann of McMann and Tate. He also portrayed Mr. Gimbel in Miracle on 34th Street in 1973.

Movies24

  • Movie8.0

    Citizen Kane

    1941 · 6.2K votes

  • Movie6.7

    Cry of the City

    1948 · 75 votes

  • Movie6.1

    Blue Hawaii

    1961 · 158 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Bigger Than Life

    1956 · 188 votes

  • Movie6.1

    Follow That Dream

    1962 · 48 votes

  • Movie5.5

    Jet Pilot

    1957 · 50 votes

  • Movie6.5

    To Please a Lady

    1950 · 14 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Convicted

    1950 · 33 votes

  • Movie6.6
  • Movie5.7
  • Movie7.0

    Miracle on 34th Street

    1973 · 13 votes

  • Movie5.8

    Captain Carey, U.S.A.

    1950 · 18 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Malaya

    1949 · 17 votes

  • Movie5.4
  • Movie8.0

    A String of Beads

    1961 · 1 votes

  • Movie6.0

    Loving

    1970 · 19 votes

  • Movie6.3

    Cash McCall

    1960 · 15 votes

  • Movie5.7

    A Dangerous Profession

    1949 · 16 votes

  • Movie6.4

    The Return of October

    1948 · 7 votes

  • Movie8.2
  • Movie6.1

    Docks of New Orleans

    1948 · 7 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Once More, My Darling

    1949 · 4 votes

  • Movie4.9

    Top Secret Affair

    1957 · 7 votes

  • Movie8.0

    Sky Dragon

    1949 · 4 votes

Series17

  • TV7.7

    Perry Mason

    1957 · 139 votes

  • TV7.9
  • TV7.8

    Bewitched

    1964 · 764 votes

  • TV6.3

    The Defenders

    1961 · 11 votes

  • TV7.1

    The Lucy Show

    1962 · 53 votes

  • TV7.7

    The Carol Burnett Show

    1967 · 74 votes

  • TV7.1

    Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

    1964 · 35 votes

  • TV8.0

    The Addams Family

    1964 · 457 votes

  • TV7.8
  • TV7.8

    The Jack Benny Program

    1950 · 17 votes

  • TV6.8

    Startime

    1959 · 4 votes

  • TV8.0

    Play of the Week

    1959 · 1 votes

  • TV6.7

    Lux Video Theatre

    1950 · 7 votes

  • TV6.5

    Broken Arrow

    1956 · 6 votes

  • TV7.5

    Adam's Rib

    1973 · 2 votes

  • TV6.7

    The Dain Curse

    1978 · 6 votes

  • TV